I've been lucky enough to be giving my 5D MkII a high altitude workout over the last few days and even luckier that I survived the workout myself. Anyway, here's an image that I can't be objective about as I've spent a year of my life playing in the vicinity. No doubt it breaks all sorts of rules of composition but I like the symmetry so here's a view of the Matterhorn from the side rather than the more classic direction. Zermatt lies to the right and Cervinia (Italy) to the left.

EOS 5D MkII, ISO 100, f/8, 1/400th, EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM at 88mm.

I've also made the full-sized version available (click on the image for an 8.6MB download) which handily shows the drawbacks of so many pixels with a faint contrail near the peak. Not quite enough resolution to see if there were any climbers on the ridge, though.

I like it, but I've never been one to follow the rule book too closely anyway. I particularly like the contrast with the sky, with something going on everywhere without being too busy. I wonder if that's a plane (few pixels) in the "V" on the right.

My monitor is uncalibrated and I think is too bright even on current 0 brightness setting, but playing with highlight recovery brings out more detail of the snow.

I use an uncalibrated monitor as well. My workflow includes Adobe Camera Raw which I use to make sure that highlights aren't clipped and they definitely weren't in that shot. Do you think it's possible that the fact that you can bring extra detail out in the snow by manipulating an 8-bit JPEG implies that your monitor isn't helping?

Anyway, here's a more usual perspective which was taken on the following day after a 2,500 foot climb up the west side of the valley out of Zermatt. The view made up for the hard work but I was grateful for the image stabilisation from the lens as I was too fagged to get out the tripod.

The scenery's there is the star and I struggle to do it justice. Yes, a polariser was in use but, from memory, it wasn't very effective on that second shot because the Sun angle wasn't right. That said, I was suffering so much through general exhaustion by that point (all of my lenses and the tripod were in the backpack as well as water and munchies) I'm lucky I got the shot at all.

Most of the colour in the shot was "improved" by playing with Camera Raw's Clarity and Vibrance controls but I did use Photoshop to selectively increase the saturation of the sky. Not everyone may like the intensity I aim for, of course.

Here's one of the Breithorn, which stands at 4164 meters (13658 feet) high.

EOS 5D MkII, ISO 100, f/8, 1/400th, EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM at 24mm.

Just to give an idea of the scale here's a 100% crop showing the climbers. It might look relatively gentle but a friend of mine was nearly killed there a few years back when a member of the party slipped and the entire group, roped together of course, only stopped sliding a few hundred yards from the cliff.